WEILL, MICHEL AARON:

French rabbi; born at Strasburg July 19, 1814; died at Paris Jan. 6, 1889. He was educated at the Ecole Centrale Rabbinique at Metz, where he received the rabbinical diploma, and at the Sorbonne at Paris. After acting as a professor at the Ecole Consistoriale at Nancy, Weill was in 1845 appointed instructor at Algiers, where he became the first French chief rabbi (1846-64). His earnest efforts to inculcate French civilization in the Algerian Jews met, however, with little success, and he retired into private life until 1876, when he accepted the rabbinate of Toul. Nine years later he resigned this office and settled in Paris, devoting himself to literary pursuits.